Executive Summary : | Current cancer treatments, such as surgical intervention, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, are nonselective and can damage healthy normal tissues, leading to severe side effects. Drug encapsulation offers enhanced solubility, stability, targeted drug delivery, reduced toxic side effects, and improved pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties. Nanoscale drug delivery vehicles, such as exosomes, dendrimers, liposomes, silica nanoparticles, micelles, and metal organic frameworks, are promising technologies for improving drug efficacy and reducing side effects. Exosomes are lipid-bound bilayer particles secreted by cells in normal physiological conditions and are preferred over other nano-vesicles due to their ability to penetrate the blood-brain barriers, low immunogenicity, low toxicity, and protection from enzymatic degradation. Cancer cells exhibit overexpressed cell surface receptors for peptides, hormones, and essential nutrients, providing a significant number of target candidates for selective drug delivery and enhanced accumulation of anticancer agents in tumors. Exosome functionalization with RGD-based strategies is proposed for targeting tumor cells, with cyclo RGD peptide [c(RGDyK)] exhibiting high affinity to integrin alpha v beta 3 in breast cancer. Modification of exosomes with Luteinizing hormone releasing hormone (LHRH) can target most cancers, including liver cancer with overexpressed LHRH receptors. Amino ethyl anisamide (AA) functionalized exosomes will be designed and targeted to sigma receptor overexpressed on lungs cancer cells. Natural products, such as flavonoids, diterpenoids, triterpenoids, and alkaloids, have shown anticancer activity, offering cost-effectiveness, lesser adverse effects, greater safety margins, and long-lasting effects. The proposed project aims to extract natural medicinal phytochemicals from T. chebula and C. longa, designing exosomes by surface modification and studying their therapeutic potential as an efficient anticancer drug delivery vehicle. |